


Small Town Summer

by panicky_pancakes



Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, multi-chapter definitely, summer vacation AU, there's gonna be some teen drama too bc why not, this is going to be a BIG fic, yeah it's a summer vacation au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:53:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27598505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panicky_pancakes/pseuds/panicky_pancakes
Summary: Davey Jacobs was supposed to go to a writing workshop camp over the summer. Instead, he ends up in Stoney Beach (loosely based on Sauble Beach, ON) with his sister, brother, and parents. For the WHOLE summer, too. Stuck in a tiny beach town, he decides to (or, rather, is forced to) become friends with the local teenagers.
Relationships: (i'll add to this idk where it's going yet?), Kind of javid im not sure yet, Newsbians - Relationship
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> This town is based on an amalgamation of Sauble Beach, Ontario, and Lunenberg, Nova Scotia. Enjoy!  
> P.S.: 20 degrees celsius (what I mean when I say 20 degrees) is around 68 degrees fahrenheit.

_Summer towns are entirely different from any town you’ll go to. The people there act like they know you, they pretend to be themselves around you, but since you’re a tourist, you’ll never really know. You might be in their hometown for two weeks, two months even, but you’ll never know the people._

“Why are you writing about something you’ve literally never experienced?”

Davey turned his head to see his sister reading his notebook over his shoulder. Telephone poles and trees whizzed by out the car window as she leaned over the back of the seat.

“Why are _you_ reading it?”

“Listen,” Sarah said, “I know you’re bummed about not being able to go to that fancy writing camp, but try to lighten up! Stoney Beach is supposed to be awesome!”

“Yeah,” he sighed. He knew he wouldn’t have been able to go to the writing camp anyway - he’d seen his parents huddled over the kitchen table on those late, end-of-the-month nights, stacks of bills piled around them.

“I’m excited!” their brother Les proclaimed in a voice far too loud for the small space of the car.

“Thank you, Les,” Davey’s mother said gratefully, shooting a warning glance at her two older children. “This is going to be good for us.” Davey’s father kept one hand on the steering wheel and put another on top of his wife’s.

Davey had a love-hate relationship with the feeling of getting out of a car after a long drive. For one thing, you felt like you could do anything - everything was possible now that you weren’t stuck in a moving metal box with your siblings and your parents. But you also felt greasy and strange, and it didn’t help that Stoney Beach was chillier than the city because of the wind off the lake. T-shirt rippling in the wind, he popped open the trunk and grabbed his bag. Before he even brought it in the house, he set it down and rummaged through it, looking for his sweatshirt. Jeans, no, board shorts, no, books, nope - his hand reached the bottom of the bag.

“Twenty degrees and windy,” he hissed to himself, zipping up his bag, “and I didn’t think to bring a _fucking_ sweatshirt.”

“David.”

“Sorry, Mom.”

“Bit cold for you, brother dear?” Sarah teased, waltzing past him with her hood up. “Considering you’re the king of sweatshirts, it seems you’ve been… dethroned!”

“You-” Davey shouldered his bag and chased his twin inside their vacation house, nearly tripping over the threshold as he went. He caught up to Sarah, who had stopped running and put her backpack down on the sofa.

“This place is nice,” she said, “oh, and look!”

Through the blue french doors at the back of the house, the lake could be seen, gray-blue and huge. Sarah threw them open and kicked off her runners in a nearly smooth motion, headed towards the water. The wind blew her dark, bone-straight hair back from her face, but simultaneously flattened Davey’s against his eyes. Annoyed yet amused at the irony, he pushed his hair back and went to stand next to his sister. His arms were still freezing.

“It won’t be this cold all summer, right?”

“No,” Sarah assured him, perhaps assuring herself as well. “It’ll warm up. Today’s a fluke or something.”

“I hope so. Let’s go inside.” Davey was already turning towards the back deck. He hadn’t taken off his shoes like Sarah had, so his Converse were now covered in sand, and he was pretty sure he could feel some scrunching around his toes too.

“Why don’t you kids go into town?” Davey’s mother suggested after they’d all claimed their bedrooms and emptied their bags into the dresser drawers.

“Can we get ice cream?” Les asked from his place on the sofa.

“Yeah, I have a couple bucks,” Sarah said, shoving her phone into her jeans pocket. Davey followed suit, snatching his phone from the counter and opening the front door.

“Wait, we’re walking?” Les sounded disheartened once they got outside.

“What do you think, bubs?” Davey laughed, starting down the cracked sidewalk. “It’s, like, ten minutes. You’ll live.”

“No. Sazzy, can you give me a piggyback?”

“Les, you’re nine-”

“-almost ten-”

“-you can walk.”

“Fine.”

Downtown Stoney Beach was, in a word, sandy. The concrete road that ran between the pastel clapboard shops could barely be seen for the sand on top of it. Sand, ingrained in the tires of the cars, turned them a light brownish-gray instead of black rubber. A large sign that read _Stoney Beach City Centre_ was affixed on tall metal poles and stood arching over the road, tall enough that Davey had to crane his neck to read it properly.

“Do you want to get a sweatshirt while we’re here?” Sarah asked him, gesturing across the road to a small shop by the boardwalk with shirts and sweatshirts hanging in the window.

“Ice creeeeaaaaammmm…” Les reminded them, grabbing Davey’s hand and pulling him just slightly towards the neon window display proclaiming that it sold the best homemade ice cream in town.

“Okay, I’ll take his nibs to the ice cream parlour, you go get yourself a sweatshirt. We’ll meet you there.”

“Okay,” Davey said, walking towards the shop. On impulse, he turned around but kept walking and called after Sarah, “hey, get me mint chip, would you?”

“Yup!”

In the windows as he passed them, Davey stole glances at his own reflection. It’d been hours since he’d had proper time to fix his appearance, and it showed. His dark hair, wind-mussed (sadly not in the fashionable way) stuck out at odd angles. Self-consciously he tried to flatten it to an acceptable position, but the wind off the lake destroyed his attempts within seconds. Mildly annoyed, Davey continued down the road, bumping into some girls as he went.

“Hey, watch it, asshole,” one scoffed, turning on her heel to regard him as he fixed his shoelaces that had come undone when he’d bumped into her.

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” he apologized, standing up and avoiding the group of girls’ stares.

“No problem, tourist,” one of the other girls half-laughed, looking him up and down. “Go back to your hotel.”

As they continued to walk, leaving him standing on the sidewalk quite bewildered, one of them hung back.

“Sorry about them,” she muttered. “Long story. I’m Finch. Well, most people call me Paisley now.”

“Davey.”

“Good to meet you, Davey.”

Before Davey could return the sentiment, the tallest girl called from down the street. “Paisley! Come on!”

“Sorry, Miko, I’m coming!” Finch (Paisley?) ran off to catch up with her friends, leaving Davey confused. Shrugging it off, he kept walking. Maybe he’d see them around town over the summer, he thought to himself. Part of him hoped not.

_Wear ‘Em Out_ , the name of the store, seemed even smaller inside. Clothing racks were stuffed with rash guards and board shorts, tacky T-shirts took up the tables, and some surfboards hung from the ceiling.

A short lap around the room helped Davey find a sweatshirt that wasn’t rainbow tie-dye or covered in a cheesy slogan. The navy blue fabric was soft in his hands, and the little inked logo on the left shoulder was just a simple wave design - eighty times better than the greeny-yellow monstrosity that had been his only other option.

“Hey, you need help with anything?”

Davey whipped around, startled, to see a boy his own age leaning against the wall near him. “Er, no, I’m fine, thank you,” he stammered quietly, fiddling with the tag.

“You a tourist?” the boy asked.

“I mean…” the word _tourist_ left a bad taste in Davey’s mouth. “I’m here all summer,” he said instead. “And I forgot a sweatshirt. Is it always this cold here?”

“Cold? Oh, buddy,” the other boy laughed, shaking his head. “Twenty degrees is not that cold. But to answer your question, no, not always. Come July it’ll warm up.”

“Oh. Sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

“Jack,” he said, holding out his hand for Davey to shake. Reluctantly, he took it. “Sorry,” Jack muttered, taking back his hand. “My Dad taught me to do that and I can’t seem to break the habit.”

“It’s fine.” Was it really that obvious? Had the handshake been bad? Was Davey acting weird? Instead of procuring answers, all his brain had to say was _aaaaaah_.

“You gonna… tell me _your_ name, or…?”

 _Good God._ “Yeah, uh, I’m Davey.”

Thankfully, a saviour came from behind the counter to talk to Jack. “Hey, Jack, did you put in the orders for the new skimboards?” They shot a glance at Davey but only for a moment, keeping their eyes on Jack. Their hair, buzzed around the sides, was the same colour as Jack’s, and Jack had a similar face shape.

“ _Shit_ , sorry Benny!” Jack smacked a hand to his forehead. “I’m the worst brother- I know you wanted to have those in by today-”

“-First, don’t call me Benny, it’s Ben,” Ben said, “second, it’s fine. They might come a couple days late, but we’ll still have them before the summer really starts. You’re not a bad brother. You are short, though.” Ben stood about a foot taller than Jack.

“Okay,” Jack breathed, obviously relieved. “Oh, Ben, this is Davey.”

“Hi,” they greeted, attempting to shake Davey’s hand. Great. Another one. When Davey didn’t take it, they simply smiled and lowered their arm. “No problem.”

“Thank you,” Davey sighed.

Davey bought the sweatshirt and was on his way out of _Wear ‘Em Out_ when he heard Jack call after him. “Oh, by the way, a couple friends and I are hangin’ out at the Star Shack tonight, seven p.m.. It’s by the docks, you should come!”

“Um, yeah, I’ll try.”

“See you around.”


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So many people to meet...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is an irregular schedule... and this chapter's really short... :/ but anyway hope you enjoy! I'm still glad i got it done, pre-exams are kicking my *ss at the moment.

The main street bustled as Davey made his way towards what he hoped was the place Jack had mentioned. He did his best to apologize to everyone he bumped into, fearing that he’d get himself into a similar interaction to the one earlier that day. By the time he made it to where he was going, Davey was  _ far _ more turned around than he’d expected.

A voice behind him asked “hey, are you lost?”

Davey spun around, looking for the owner of the voice. Surprisingly, the girl from earlier - Finch? Or Paisley? - was the one who’d asked him. Now, less plagued with embarrassment, he actually saw what she looked like. Finch-Paisley had hair similar to Sarah’s, straight and a little past her shoulders, though hers was a much lighter brown.

“Where are you trying to go?”

“Uh, a place called the Star Shack,” he answered. “I got invited there.”

“Oh, that’s where I’m going, too!” exclaimed Finch-Paisley, starting down the road, clearly expecting him to follow.

“This is the place.”

The Star Shack was exactly that - a shack, full to the brim with teenagers sharing baskets of fries and drinking tall, midnight blue milkshakes. A neon sign that hung from the rafters proclaimed the restaurant’s supposedly world famous pork fritters, and waiters and waitresses milled around calling orders to each other, all of them dressed in Star Shack T-shirts the same colour as the milkshakes on their serving trays. A quick scan around the small restaurant was all Davey needed to find the people he’d met earlier that day. Jack and Ben, along with a few other people, were seated in a large booth near the corner.

“Who are you meeting?” Finch-Paisley asked him, looking around.

“Them, over there.” Davey pointed at the booth.

“No way!” Finch-Paisley smiled, “those are my friends!”

“Thank you so much,” he said gratefully as they made their way to the table. “Earlier, you said two names… which one should I call you?”

She thought for a while before giving her reply. “Finch,” she decided. “You seem too nice to call me Paisley.”

Confused, Davey brushed it off and sat down at the booth next to Ben, who grinned at him.

“You made it!” they said happily. 

“Thanks to Finch,” Davey told them, and they smiled.

“She let you call her Finch,” Ben noticed, “that’s big.”

“Why?”

“I’ll explain another time. Or she will.”

“Hey, glad you made it, Davey,” Jack said, leaning around Ben to talk to him. “This is-”

“-Could you not talk over my head, Jack?” Ben swatted at Jack’s face.

“Jesus, Ben, just  _ move _ , would ya-” After some squirming around by Jack and Ben, Jack was now sitting next to Davey and Ben now sat next to a tall boy with blond curly hair.

“Okay, that’s Racetrack, or Race.” Jack pointed to the boy next to Ben. “Then next to Finch, that’s Albert.” Albert was currently chatting with Finch and fiddling with the many pins on his jacket. Davey recognized the pansexual flag as one of them. “And next to Albert, with the crutches, is Charlie.” Charlie’s hair hung over his eyes, the straw-blond strands shining under the restaurant lights. His elbow crutches were leaned up against the wall, and the yellow metal matched the colour of his shirt, covered in darker yellow sunflowers.

“Hi!” Charlie greeted across the table, waving his hand a little, causing his shirt sleeve to slide down and reveal the many, many string bracelets tied around his wrists.

After a while, Race suggested they order some food. It took a long time for the group to finally agree, but Davey was glad they did - he was starving.

“Okay, we got fries,” Jack said, passing the basket of fries down towards Albert and Race, “disgusting-ass  _ sweet potato _ fries for Finchie over there-”

“-they’re not gross,” she said, “fuck you.”

“Back atcha,” sniped Jack. “And finally, pork fritters. Want some?” He offered Davey the basket of fried pork, already biting into one.

“I can’t,” Davey said apologetically. “I’m Jewish.”

“Oh, cool.” Davey was surprised he hadn’t gotten the usual ‘so  _ no _ pork?’ conversation - it was refreshing, to be honest. “Have some fries, though?” Jack asked.

“Yeah, thanks.”

By the end of the night, Davey had somehow been added to the group chat, officially adopted by Albert, and been indoctrinated into Race’s so called French Fry Cult (this one had  _ really _ confused him).

Once he was home, flipping through channels with his sister as his mother put Les to bed, his phone started to ping. Digging it out of his pocket, he saw that he had 5 new messages, all from the new group chat. Greeting him when he opened them was a photo of Finch’s hair, now bright plum, with a caption and a few more messages underneath.

**FINCH: whoa can’t believe asexuals own the colour purple**

**JACK: hey nice hair**

**ALBERT: shes right tho we** **_do_ ** **own the colour**

**CHARLIE: finchie!!!! Love it <3**

Davey smiled and clicked off his phone, turning his attention back to the TV. Sarah side-eyed him from her place on the sofa.

“New friends?”

“Kinda.”

“Mm,” was all she had to say.

“Don’t you wanna meet them?” Davey wondered, tilting his head at her.

“Not really.”

Confused for what felt like the eightieth time that night, Davey sighed and went into his bedroom, shutting the door behind him. Being with people all night had made him feel astronomically tired, and he barely had the energy to brush his teeth. Flopping onto the still-unfamiliar bed, his mind began to think sleepily. He had so many questions - about Finch, about Sarah, about  _ himself... _ but these would have to wait until morning, he thought as he drifted off.

_ “What happened, Mom?” _

_ Davey’s mother shook her head, breezing past him with a sobbing Sarah heaped in her arms. All of eight years old and small for his age, the top of his head barely reached his mother’s waist. He had to crane his neck to see Sarah as he walked beside his mother. _

_ “Sazzy, why are you crying?” Davey asked her, which only made her cry harder. “Did something happen at school? How come I didn’t hear about it? Why-” _

_ “-David Isaac Jacobs,” his mother cut off, shooting him a  _ look _. “Leave your sister be.” _

_ Annoyed, Davey wandered through the kitchen and into the living room, where his father sat with the newspaper. Mayer Jacobs’s glasses were perched on the end of his nose, and his salt-and-pepper hair was still gelled and combed after coming home from work. _

_ “Dad, what happened?” _

_ “Some girls were mean to Sarah today,” he said, “and you weren’t there.” _

_ “Huh?” had Davey done something wrong? _

_ “She’s your twin,” his father explained, “you should help each other.” _

_ “I’m sorry.” _

_ “Don’t be.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is this fic worth continuing?

**Author's Note:**

> Remember, comments & kudos keep me motivated! If you're reading this fic, I love you, those are the rules :)


End file.
